Humboldt State University’s First Street Gallery presents, The Spider and the Fly, a collection of prints and mixed media drawings by artist Gail Wight on display April 1 to May 18. Currently a Professor of Art at Stanford University, Wight’s work has earned her national and international recognition in solo and group exhibitions.

Wight is inspired by the natural world and the way that it is perceived by humanity. She depicts human, animal, plant and other species in order to reveal the patterns and effects of biological convergence. Sculpture, video, interactive media and print are Wight’s primary mediums, which she liberally uses to explore themes of evolution, art, biology, cognition and animal sentience. Recently her work has focused on the concept of time, unlocking the desire for a better understanding of the unknowable past.

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents, Laughter in Darkness, a group exhibition featuring paintings by Seana Burden, Jeff Jordan and Jesse Wiedel. All three artists currently reside on California's North Coast.

Each artist uses contrasting elements of familiarity and imagination in order to create thought-provoking, humorous experiences for the viewer. A common thread tying their work together is the mash-up approach of blending imagery drawn from direct observation, contemporary media, traditional landscape and fictional spaces. The artists often combine realistic approaches with dream-like passages that yield images that are at once familiar yet unsettling.

Seana Burden's paintings address two subjects, sometimes blending the two: romance as portrayed in Pop Culture and the dichotomous role of women and how they are portrayed in contemporary and traditional society. Her romantic and socially conscious paintings have a folk-art quality that is enthusiastically detailed. With the use of glitter in her paint, storybook references exemplifying our culture's attachment to stereotypical female ideals and consumer culture, she makes paintings that project trenchant, yet whimsical social commentary.

Jeff Jordan is widely known for his charged imagery on the album covers of numerous bands, such as Mars Volta, Protest The Hero, and Leprous. His surrealist style humorously celebrates the human condition within a broad context of politics, history and technology. He blends everyday subject matter and absurd imagery, realistically rendered, to create a thought-provoking dialogue between the work and the viewer. Jordan's craft incorporates a sophisticated, complex use of color and his allusions to Art History emphatically underscore his life-long devotion to painting.

Jesse Wiedel's paintings expose the unsettling, stranger-than-fiction feeling that can be evoked by the mundane. In using quotidian settings from California and the American West and populating them with vividly rendered depictions of people at the margins of society, living in the streets, meth addicts and the lumpenproletariat, his works arouse shock but also laughter in the viewer. Within his narrative scenes, a grotesque, often humorous, yet uncannily familiar rendition of street life resides.

Laughter in Darkness is produced by Humboldt State University students enrolled in the Museum and Gallery Practices Program. HSU First Street Gallery provides real-life opportunities for the students to develop their gallery and museum skills, which in turn provides them with the experience that will help them enter the job market. Many students who have participated in the program have gone on to pursue careers in museums and galleries throughout the nation.

Teens Turning Green, a youth-led non-profit organization, will visit campus April 1 to engage Humboldt State students in a variety of discussions, demos and hand-on activities focused on sustainability.

On the third of 16 visits to universities across the country, the program “seeks to demonstrate how simple, fun, and accessible conscious living can be for a college lifestyle, while empowering students to develop and implement projects that lead to more sustainable lives and campuses,” according to Erin Schrode, TTG Co-Founder.

TTG’S efforts to raise awareness and educate about conscious living and decision-making on campuses are centered on two key components:

- The Conscious Information Station: With a focus on seven key lifestyle categories, the interactive CIS features info boards, product sampling, hands-on demos, activities, and in-depth conversations. A station will be set up on the University Center Quad from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

- Town Hall Meeting: An evening dinner gathering of students, faculty, and school leaders focuses attention on a student led sustainability project to be developed on campus; TTG will collaborate from inception to fruition. The dinner begins at 5 p.m. and will be hosted in the Great Hall above the College Creek Marketplace.

“Humboldt State University has several student led sustainability clubs and organizations,” says Anna Rhoads, Environmental Science senior and member of the Humboldt Student Sustainability Coalition. “Throughout my four years at this university, HSU has evolved with its sustainability initiatives and projects. Bringing the TTG’s Conscious College Road Tour will help raise significant awareness amongst students and staff about sustainable and conscious living.”

Each department in the College of Professional Studies and its respective student clubs will demonstrate hands-on activities such as children’s book making, online classroom lesson plans, counseling interest inventories, concussion baseline and body composition testing, social work advocacy flyers and internship videos. The showcase is free and open to the public.

Part of the College of Professional Studies' Showcase Month in April, commemorating HSU's 2013-14 Centennial.

Thomas Dunklin is a local Fisheries Geo-Videologist documenting water resource issues all over California as they relate to fish habitat. Dunklin will be presenting his latest film on the restoration efforts by the Yurok tribe on the Trinity and Klamath river basins. Q & A session will follow.

Refreshments provided by The Water Resource and The Natural Resources clubs.